by Ian Slater
The Tomcats were again too good for the MiGs, the American jets’ fly-by-wire technology far superior to the Russian- and Chinese-made controls when it came to using circuits instead of ailerons. And while the monsoon was abating, the rain was still so heavy that flying by instrumentation alone put the Americans still further ahead, the final toll in this sortie, four Tomcats lost to fifteen MiGs. And what Freeman had expected to be the worst of it, the fighting withdrawal, went far better than expected. Ironically, his decision to attack in the monsoon, when flying by instrument was the only way, had been the best decision about the use of an air force since the world war had begun. Within hours its implications were revolutionizing NATO strategy, giving new hope to the exhausted and outnumbered NATO pilots in the European theater that the bad weather of winter might promise to give them a decided edge against the Soviet and Warsaw Pact planes.
Success on the ground at Pyongyang, where Freeman’s chopper had been the last to leave, was not due solely to the Tomcats’ superb ability to keep the MiGs off the Chinooks, but was largely due to the three remaining Apache helos, which, rearmed from three supply Chinooks and lighter because of the jettisoned extra fuel pods they had had coming in, rose from the square like angry gnats and attacked the NKA armored column approaching from Nampo, able to come down directly above the tanks’ turret tops, the latter being the most vulnerable armored section of any battle tank. The Hellfire missiles set the first six PT-76s afire, the bigger, heavier tanks, including most of the captured American M-60s, having already been sent south days before for Kim’s final push on the Yosu perimeter.
* * *
Even so, when Freeman returned to the Saipan, he was a disappointed man. The little pudgy official with the glasses, interrogated aboard the LPH, was not the “runt” after all but a senior official with the NKA’s ministry of supply, merely working late at Mansudae Hall.
“Where the hell is he then?” thundered Freeman, drained and tired.
“They say he’s well outside the city in a bunker,” Al Banks informed the general. “Apparently, first radar alert they had, or rather when our Prowlers started scrambling, they got him out.”
“By God,” Freeman said disgustedly, “he’s a goddamned coward as well.”
“General, sir, you did a magnificent job. Washington expected us to take sixty — eighty — percent casualties. We got out with less than fourteen percent.”
“Well, Al,” said the general, who kept moving around in the sick bay, the SB attendant trying to clean the deep knife wound, “fourteen percent is two hundred and eighty men, Al. And not to get that Commie bastard is a — it’s—”
“General,” interjected Banks, his relief at getting back alive infusing him with the same excitement as it had the media types now filing their stories via the fleet communications center aboard the Salt Lake City south of them, “we, you, got into the North Korean capital — in the worst weather imaginable — shook the hell out of them, and came out. General, our boys in the Yosu perimeter are counterattacking like you wouldn’t believe.”
The general started to simmer down. “The other two attacks on Taegu and Taejon — how are they doing?”
“Proceeding as planned, General — knocking the hell out of their supply line, and the NKA air force has shot its wad. Salt Lake City tells us our attack sucked up most of the MiGs from the south away from the perimeter. Our reinforcements are unloading at Pusan now.”
“Well,” said the general grumpily, but clearly bolstered by the news, “that was worth it. But it sticks in my craw that we never got that turd.” His arm was still, the sick bay attendant working fast, but there was a lot of dirt in the wound and grease around it, and the attendant was wondering whether he should remind the general or not about the importance of cleaning a wound, in combat or anywhere else, as quickly as possible. He decided to take the plunge.
“Sir, you should get a tetanus booster.”
“What — oh, all right, son. If you say so.”
The general turned to Banks again, who was looking a bit out of it, thrown off balance by the LPH’s sharp turn and a long roll that sent the medic’s kidney dish clanking on the steel deck. “You’d better sit down, Al.”
“I’ll be okay, General. Sorry, I forgot what we were—”
“That other bozo in the Mao suit. Who’s he?”
“Ministry of supply’s secretary — or so he says. We could run it through the Pentagon computer link if you like?”
“No. Waste of time.”
“The dog tags you got, General. Both NKA officers. One a lieutenant. The other was a Major Rhee. Intelligence. He—”
“Yes — the son of a bitch tried to kill me. Sneaky bastard. Well, that young marine — Brentwood — and I. We put pay to that. Damn knife wound.” The general held his arm up. “Looks like I’ve been in a whorehouse brawl.”
“Well, General, you did better with that major than you think.”
Banks turned to the ROK captain, who had been sitting quietly by the sick bay’s centrifuge. “That right, Dae?” asked Banks.
The ROK captain turned to Freeman. “Sir, the major was from General Kim’s personal staff. Intelligence. We found these on him—” The ROK officer handed Freeman a bunch of creased papers, a lot of Korean characters on them that the general didn’t understand but recognized as the outline of military areas V and VII. It was the Yosu-Pusan perimeter. The ROK officer leaned forward, pointing to various Korean markings outside the perimeter on the Nam River, which flowed down from Taegu, breaching the perimeter at Chinju fifteen miles north of Sachon. “Disposition of U.S.-ROK forces, General.” He pointed next to the cluster of Korean characters above the arc of the perimeter. Next to each character were rectangles and squares of NKA troop and all battery dispositions. “Kim’s strategy for his attack on Yosu, day after next, General.”
“What!”
“Don’t worry, sir,” Banks quickly interjected. “We had the information coded and SAT-bounced to Pusan HQ, Washington, and Tokyo before your chopper and the last Tomcats crossed the coast.”
“Hot damn!” said Freeman. “We didn’t do so bad after all, Al.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, General.”
“Dumb bastards. Should’ve burned ‘em,” said Freeman.
“We didn’t give them much time, General,” responded Banks, sharing the general’s excitement. “We were in and out of Crap City under two hours.”
“Seemed like two days,” confessed Freeman.
“Most of the men feel the same, sir.”
Suddenly Freeman fell silent. “We get all our dead out?”
“No, sir. Airborne over at the airfield took the worst of it. It was the howitzers that the NKA were really after — thought it was a major breakthrough from the South. They wanted Rick Menzies’ big guns.”
“Rick get out?”
“No, sir. He was spiking the guns last I heard, but that’s only hearsay — until we get confirmation from his two IC. LPH got a bit overcrowded here with everybody coming in. Some of the choppers went on to the carrier.”
“We don’t need to get it straight from anyone,” said Freeman. “He was a pro to the core.” The general winced as the medic touched his arm with the alcohol, then, seeing what it was, only cotton batting, looked embarrassed. “Talking of pros, I want that Brentwood boy and that other man—” The general tried to remember his name. “Boy from Brooklyn—”
“We’ll trace him, sir.”
The general was still avoiding the sight of the tetanus needle. “Owe my life to that Brentwood. Make a note of it, AL Silver Star.”
“Happy to, sir.” The general grimaced as the cold steel pushed into his arm and he felt the antitetanus serum injected into him. “Al — our photographers. Did they get out?”
“Four of the six, General.”
Freeman nodded. “They get pictures of us all over Crap City?”
Banks was so tired that for a second he thought Freeman meant pict
ures somehow being spread all over Pyongyang like propaganda leaflets.
“They get shots of us?” pressed the general, the first time the ROK officer had seen anything like apprehensiveness, even fear, in the general’s eyes.
“Oh, yes, General,” answered Banks. “Two of them were up on the People’s Study House. Top floor. Infrared shots mostly, around the square and of the howitzers firing. I think they got most of it, far as I know.”
“You haven’t seen any yet?” asked the general.
“No, sir. I—”
“By God, Al. We’ve got to get those pictures stateside right away. The President’ll want to see them. American people need to know—”
Banks began to tell him that the news of the American raid via SAT signals was already burning the wires hot to half a dozen news agencies throughout the world. “It’ll be headline news all around the world, General.”
“Pictures, Al. Goddamn it — we need to get the pictures out. Know what the Chinese say. Picture is worth a thousand words.”
“I’ll check it out, sir.”
“Do it now.”
“Yes, General,” said Banks wearily, getting up and feeling a little light-headed, making toward the sick bay door. “I’ll get right onto it.”
“Al-”
Banks turned slowly, trying not to look as fatigued as he felt. “Yes, General?”
“Al. There’s only one son of a bitch in this world with a bigger ego than that runt!”
Banks looked puzzled.
“Me,” the general said, and winked.
* * *
Banks was correct. Dawn now, 6:00 p.m. the night before in Washington and 11:00 p.m. in London — too late for the early evening news in America and pushing it for the midnight BBC broadcast, the news nevertheless took the world by storm. All programs in progress were put on hold as announcers cut in with the news flash of the American attack, the video pictures showing Kim Il Sung’s enormous statue now a rubble on the ground, his body badly cracked yet clearly recognizable, the head split and nothing left standing but the hump of the pedestal.
Then came the biggest shock of all: cuts of Pyongyang Polly, picked up by satellite, announcing to the slow accompaniment of funereal music that “our dear and respected leader” had been killed in the American raid and that the new people’s provisional revolutionary government was being led by “our dearly revered president, Choi Yunshik,” formerly a vice martial in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The CIA at Langley knew nothing more about Choi than that he was a middle-of-the-roader who had opposed the hitherto unheard-of Communist “succession” of Kim Jong Il taking over his father’s title.
General Kim, it was announced by Pyongyang Polly, was being relieved, “due to ill health.”
With the precious time and intelligence gained by Freeman’s attack, the pressure on the Yosu/Pusan perimeter was immediately reduced. Kim’s overextended supply line severed by the “Freeman-style” attacks, as the press was calling them, on Taejon and Taegu had only added to General Kim’s problems.
Everything had come unglued for Kim, due in no small measure to the capture of Kim’s plan of attack on Pusan from Major Rhee, who, after interrogating Tae at Uijongbu, had been given the plan by Kim to take to Pyongyang for the blessing of the NKA’s general staff.
* * *
In Beijing, behind the highly lacquered bloodred gates of Zhongnanhai Compound on Changan Avenue, the North Korean ambassador reported that Pyongyang wished to “discuss the situation” with the United States, and as there was no official representative of the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea “ in the imperialist warmonger’s capital,” the government in Pyongyang representing the “freedom-loving people of North Korea” requested that their comrades of the People’s Republic of China might intercede on their behalf.
The ambassador’s request was not well received by Premier Lin, who reminded the Korean that their late dear leader, Kim II Sung, father of Kim Jong D, whom Chinese intelligence knew was not dead but under house arrest, had once referred to the Chinese as “American puppets.”
The ambassador was shocked, and said, with great respect, that he did not recall this.
“It was,” said Premier Lin coldly, “in February 1989.” With that, Lin rose, indicating the meeting was at an end. Pyongyang would be informed of the Central Committee’s decision.
The ambassador of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea bowed as low as his back condition would permit.
* * *
In three days Pyongyang, seeing their exhausted troops now reeling back from the Yosu/Pusan perimeter as far as Taegu, saw what President Mayne referred to rather mundanely as “the writing on the wall,” at least as far as the Korean theater was concerned.
The CIA was receiving messages from Beijing’s Bureau of Public Safety, the Chinese equivalent of the FBI, that “certain overtures” had been made from Pyongyang. These confirmed the CIA’s suspicion, gained from Japanese businessmen who had visited North Korea prior to the war, that, despite the loyal public displays of affection, the wearing of sixteen different pins of their dear and respected leader, the most secretive dictatorship on earth had within it a boiling discontent. The people, in consequence of the economic cost of Kim II Sung’s lavish self-idolatry, and that of his son, were experiencing the lowest standard of living in the Communist world, it being estimated that over 20 percent of the country’s GNP was going to the military.
* * *
General Freeman did not know any of this as he was in the throes of a violent allergic reaction to the tetanus shot. Nothing on his record sheet indicated any such reaction, it being hypothesized that the original vaccination given him years before had been made from a different serum. The knife wound had become badly infected, and in Tokyo’s U.S. military hospital, to which he was transferred, surgeons were discussing the possibility that they might have to amputate.
* * *
At the moment the United States Congress rose in unison upon hearing that the heretofore little-known General Douglas Freeman, U.S. Army, was to be the recipient fo the first Congressional Medal of Honor in the Asian theater, Captain Robert Brentwood, U.S. Navy, was in the redded-out control room on the top level of the four-tiered sub off the Kola Peninsula. He was about to take the USS Roosevelt up for a last attempt to receive a burst message via the VLF. No message came.
“Retract VLF,” he ordered. “Ready HF.” This was a whip aerial that would slide up from the periscope cluster to receive on the higher-frequency channels, but its appearance above the sea’s surface could prove fatal if picked up by enemy SATRECON — satellite reconnaissance.
“Five minutes only, Pete,” instructed Brentwood. “Then retract.”
“Understood. Five minutes. Counting.”
At three minutes fifty-seven seconds there was an electronic burp, the receiving screen registering digitized transmission from a TACAMO aircraft out of Reykjavik, Iceland.
There was a collective sigh.
“Jesus!” said one of the planesmen, too relieved not to break the silence order. Brentwood let it pass, relieved himself. From the computer room an operator handed him the computer-converted number-for-word message to USS Roosevelt: “Battle Stations Missiles.”
There was no Klaxon or alarm chime as, following strict procedure, Executive Officer Peter Zeldman calmly announced on the mike, “Now hear this…” as he stood on the attack center’s raised podium about the search-and-attack periscopes.
Next, Captain Brentwood ordered, “Set Condition One SQ”—the nuclear sub’s highest alert.
“Set Condition One SQ. Aye, aye, sir,” repeated Zeldman, then with all compartments “punching in” on the electronic state-of-readiness board, Zeldman confirmed, “Condition One SQ all set.”
“Very well,” acknowledged Brentwood. The USS Roosevelt, containing more explosive power than all the wars in history, each of its missiles forty times more powerful than the bombs dropped o
n Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was ready.
Leaving the attack center, Brentwood walked briskly forward of the BBQ sonar console, nicknamed “Barbecue” by the crew, past the NAVSTAR navigation console to the radio room, where he was joined by Zeldman and two other officers. As Brentwood and Zeldman watched, the other two officers from the sub’s strategic missile division opened the two small green combination safes, extracting a black plastic capsule from both. The code phrase in each was the same — in this case “Anna Belle”— the fact that both capsules contained the same name confirming the Pentagon’s order for Roosevelt to “fire all missiles.”
“Neutral trim,” ordered Brentwood solemnly.
“In neutral trim now, sir.”
“Very well. Prepare to spin. Stand by to flood outer tubes.”
“Standing by.”
“Very well. Flood tubes one, two, three, and four.” The outer doors of the torpedo tubes opened, followed by the hissing sound of air under pressure expelling water from the tubes, the four Mk-48 torpedoes sliding forward from their rail-tracked dollies into the tubes, ready to fire at any enemy sub or ship that might try to run interference with the missile launch.
In missile control the weapons officer, his gold submariner’s dolphins insignia a bloody red in the light, began feeding the local orientating corrections for Kola Peninsula into the warheads’ computers, aligning them to true north — insuring bull’s-eye trajectories for the forty-eight reentry vehicle warheads atop the six missiles. “Spin-up complete,” he announced, inserting and turning the circuit key he carried at all times on a lanyard about his neck. His assistant, a junior officer, walked, headphone wire trailing, along the narrow “Blood Alley,” the redded-out corridor of tall, lean computers, ticking off each missile’s status, verifying for the weapons officer that every one of the Trident-Cs was ready to pass through the last of its four prelaunch modes.
“Prepare for ripple fire,” instructed Brentwood, his order calmly informing the weapons officer that all missiles were to be fired, the Roosevelt now hovering in neutral buoyancy at launch depth, a hundred feet below the surface. In ripple fire sequence, each of the six thirty-ton, eight-warhead Tridents could be launched with enough water above the sub to prevent serious “blast-off” damage to the hull’s carbon steel fairing aft of the sail. It would also allow the missile to obtain optional launch from the moment steam pressure blasted each six-thousand-mile-range missile from its four-story silo. To thwart the danger of the sub yawing violently each time it lost the sixty-seven thousand pounds of each missile, the emptied tube immediately replaced by rushing water, the firing sequence would be staggered — in ripple fire — so that missile one would be followed by missile six and so on, maintaining the sub’s trim.